Modern computing systems may be used to maintain financial information, medical information, personal information, and other important information. In many examples, access to this important information is controlled in accordance with a set of access policies that are established by administrators, data owners, or other responsible entities. One of the ways in which access is controlled is through the use of digital certificates and encryption. A digital certificate allows one party to confirm, to a reasonable degree, the identity of another entity. Encryption allows data to be protected using an encryption key such that entities without access to a corresponding decryption key are unable to access the data.
Many cryptographic techniques rely on asymmetric mathematical problems that are easy to create but difficult to solve. It is possible that advances in technology may solve, or even render trivial, a problem that was once thought to be difficult to solve. Therefore, developing stronger cryptographic techniques is an ongoing problem that is important to maintaining our data security.